


If We Wake To Discover

by edenbound



Series: If We Wake To Discover [Crowley and Aziraphale raise Adam] [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Other, non-binary Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 04:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20002654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound
Summary: “Again?” Aziraphale asks, looking at Crowley on his doorstep. Crowley is --No. That's the wrong place to start. Let's go back a little.Ready?[AKA: Canon divergence 'what if', in which Certain Things happen differently, and Crowley has always been a sucker for kids.]





	If We Wake To Discover

**Author's Note:**

> This is partially an adaptation of a private RP between me and my wife, where we went ahead and played with – well, a certain idea. It sort of became its own thing when the narrator refused to be quite happy with what I was doing.
> 
> There is no sexuality in this story. Crowley is genderfluid/non-binary, and their pronouns change throughout. There is no conflict related to their gender; as in canon, it just is.
> 
> Title is from '[Eden](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/10000maniacs/eden.html)', by 10,000 Maniacs. [Lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/10000maniacs/eden.html); [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0C2g7851U).

“Again?” Aziraphale asks, looking at Crowley on his doorstep. Crowley is --

No. That's the wrong place to start. Let's go back a little. Or quite a lot: let's go back to somewhere hot and dusty, to a struggling and scrappy village where the wind scours secret messages into the fabric of mud-brick houses, and the bread comes with an unintentional side order of grit, and most of the villagers do not have all their teeth. We're not going all the way back, but a long, long way.

Ready?[1]

* * *

“Crawly?”

The demon stiffens. Sort of. It's a little difficult to properly freeze when you're carrying something, especially something warm and squirmy which has ideas of its own about locomotion. Aziraphale hurries over to him.

“Crawly, what on Earth are you -- hand over that child _right now_!”

“No!” says the bundle in Crawly's arms.

“Child, you're not _safe_ with him! He’s a demon!”

The bundle seems to consider it for a moment and then nestles further into Crawly’s hold. “Dada!”

Aziraphale stares. Crawly pushes the scarf shielding his face back a little and glares back at the angel. “There’s no need to interfere. You weren’t keen on saving him a year ago, so you needn’t bother with him now.” He hitches the child up on his hip, grimacing at the weight of him. “And we’re busy. We’ve got business here.”

“What do you mean, _I_ wasn’t keen on – ”

“The Flood, remember? Wiping out all of humankind?” Crawly hitches the child up again, holding onto him tighter when he eels around, hanging onto Crawly’s scarf. “I just saved one. That’s all. And I’m not letting you take him back and – and drown him, just because it was supposedly _God’s_ idea. He’s mine now.”

“I… Crawly, I wouldn’t _personally_ – ”

“No,” Crawly agrees, “you’d just stand by and watch while someone else does. Well, I’m not going to. He’s mine.”

It’s hard to stalk away while holding a small wriggling toddler, too, but Crawly does a very good impression of it all the same.

* * *

Forward a little.[2] The town is dusty, but a little more prosperous, and there are children playing in the street. Aziraphale is here for one particular child – taking a little peek, as it were. He’s there when a woman comes walking into town, black-robed and more than usually dusty and… with a curly lock of red hair escaping from the scarf wrapped loosely around her head.

“Crawly?” he asks, but she’s not here for him. She looks around for the children, shading her eyes against the glare.

“Matthew!” she calls, and one child separates itself from the group, hurtling toward her open arms. She takes the impact with a stagger, crouching lower to hug the boy properly. Aziraphale waits politely for a few moments, watching them, before going over there tentatively.

“Ah, Crawly?” he asks. He doesn’t miss the convulsive tightening of her arms around the boy, the way she hesitates to look up. Her eyes are still yellow and demonic, and Aziraphale wonders why he expected anything differently. It’s just… the way she holds the boy –

“What,” she says, flatly.

“I just – well…”

“Mama,” the boy says, tugging at her robe, “Mama, who is this? He’s been hanging round and watching us for three days!”

Crawly’s face undergoes another shift, before she tidies away any hint of concern, glancing up at Aziraphale with a raised eyebrow. “Any reason you’ve been watching my son? He’s human, you know; entirely human. I adopted him, that’s all. Most of the year, he has a good Jewish woman taking care of him, and his wayward demonic Mama just pops by on visits. All above board, I promise you.”

“I’m not watching _him_ ,” Aziraphale says, awkwardly. He gestures toward the street. “I’m here for _him_.”

Crawly frowns and looks up. It only takes a moment before her eyes fasten on one particular boy. Something goes out of her then, her shoulders slumping, even as she keeps her arms around Matthew. “Oh.”

“What’s so special about Yeshua?” Matthew asks.

“I’ll have to stay away,” Crawly says, and Aziraphale is shocked at how he resonates to the pain in her voice. She smooths back Matthew’s hair and speaks to him gently, softly. “Matthew, I’m going to have to stay away from you for a while. Just… well, I’m not sure quite how long. It’s not you, though. It’s about… what I am, and about…”

“Yeshua is very special,” Aziraphale says, helpfully. He thinks he catches a glimpse of Crawly rolling her eyes.

“Yeshua is very special _to angels_ ,” she says, and Matthew nods, his lower lip trembling. “So I’m in danger if I stay here. But you’ll be fine. Aziraphale won’t let you be harmed just because of me, and –”

“I’m coming with you,” the boy announces. Crawly blinks.

“You can’t, Matthew.”

“I’m coming with you,” he insists. “You can find me a new Auntie. Somewhere you can visit me. I don’t care about stupid old Yeshua anyway.”

Aziraphale is not sure what to do with the look in Crawly’s eyes. In the end, he looks away and occupies himself with looking at the other children while Matthew and Crawly talk. When they’re done, Matthew runs away toward one of the houses and Crawly straightens up, brushing dust from her robe.

“Appreciate the warning.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “I didn’t want you to get… caught up in all this, just for doing a good deed.”

“It’s not a good deed,” she says, frowning at him. “I’m a demon.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says, but he’s really not so sure. Not so sure at _all_.

* * *

“What happened to Matthew?” Aziraphale asks, once they’re settled with an order of oysters placed and a bottle of wine or two on their table. “He grew up into quite a handsome young man, and he can’t – ”

“Dead,” Crowley says, flatly.

“Oh. Recently?”

“Very.”

Aziraphale sits in that awkward silence for a moment and then clears his throat. “Ah, how…”

“Murdered,” Crowley says – no, he _spits_ the word out, and rinses his mouth with a large swallow of wine. “And you know why, angel? You know why they killed him?”

There’s a vague, queasy dread in the pit of Aziraphale’s stomach. “It wasn’t… my side, was it?”

“No,” Crowley says, slowly, drawing the words out, “not _your_ side. It was humans. They killed him because he took up with some new _religion_. Followers of a certain Yeshua.” Aziraphale opens his mouth to say something, but Crowley ploughs on. “They told him, you see, that Yeshua is all about _forgiveness_. It’s a new covenant, they told him. Everyone will be forgiven. _Everyone_.”

Aziraphale feels profoundly ill. “Oh, Crowley…”

“I don’t think the carpenter even thought of me – of _demons_ – when he said that. If he said that.”

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale whispers.

“And that’s why they killed Matthew. Murdered him on the road.”

“I’m so sorry, Crowley,” he says, reaching out. Crowley shrugs his hand away.

“Let’s get drunk.”

* * *

Let’s skip ahead in time again. You’ve got the idea by now, I’m sure. Let’s pause for a moment somewhere around 1100 AD, before we rush on.

“How’s Rebekah?” Aziraphale asks, slipping into a seat beside Crowley at the inn.[3] The demon knocks back his drink and grimaces.

“Married,” he says. “Terrible match. But she won’t hear a word against him. I contemplated doing something about him, but… well, she already finds it hard to cope with, what I really am. And she’s supposed to be free to choose – _humans_ are supposed to be free to choose. Even if we disagree. That’s right, isn’t it? Even if she’s being an _idiot_.”

“It sounds like there’s some kind of rift between you.”

“You could say that.” Crowley signals for another drink. “You see, she knows I’m a demon.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale says.

“And the less said about that, the better. Buy you a drink?”

“Please.”

* * *

The Blitz is a dark time. Aziraphale is used to hearing crying, as he walks through recently bombed streets. As he checks the buildings for survivors that someone else might have missed. As he checks for those who may need comfort, or care. He can’t, after all, just stand by.

He can’t stand by when he hears a choked sob from one of the buildings, even though there’s something familiar in the voice. It’s no child, no lost lover, no bereft parent.

Well. Not a human parent, anyway. Aziraphale steps into the blasted shell of the building, steeling himself for whatever carnage he might see. It’s mostly empty now, though. There’s just Crowley, on the floor, dirty and exhausted and wild-eyed.

“I’m never doing this again,” Crowley says. “Never, angel. I can’t – _all_ of them, angel, their children as well, all of them gone – damn these humans, _damn them._ ”

Aziraphale kneels and folds Crowley into his arms.

* * *

Crowley sticks to that resolution even in the face of war orphans, even in the face of disasters, in the face of Romanian orphanages. Remembering the anguish in Crowley’s face, Aziraphale expects it to stick for longer than a few decades. But here he is, on Aziraphale’s doorstep, carrying a basket.[4]

“Again? But this is – You’d… better come in,” he says, and Crowley does.

“I couldn’t give him to – I couldn't just let it – ”

“I know,” Aziraphale says. "My dear, I know.”

* * *

A small jump ahead, this time. Crowley joins Aziraphale at the school gate. The children are laughing, and the voice of one curly-headed boy is raised above the others. “I got you! I got you!”

“He’s certainly got a mouth on him,” Crowley says, pushing a lock of hair back from their eyes and tucking it back into the rather elegant knot they’re wearing it in these days. “Wonder where he gets that from.”

“You, probably,” Aziraphale says, fondly. “You think he’s going to make the right choices?”

Crowley shrugs. “I’ve told you before, angel. You can’t make the choices for them. You can only guide them. He’s got to be free to choose.”

“Well, do you think we’re doing a good job?”

They shrug, lean their hip into the gate and nudge it open. “We’ll find out soon. A couple more years.”

Aziraphale catches hold of Crowley’s arm. “I wanted to say…”

“Yes?”

He takes a deep breath, slides his hand down Crowley’s arm and takes possession of their hand. He can’t remember really touching Crowley before, except that one night in the Blitz, in a bombed out building. He’s remembered that night, the feeling of having Crowley in his arms, all this time – thought about it over and over again, and more and more now, having Crowley underfoot all the time, helping to take care of Adam together.[5]

“I misjudged you,” he says, “all along.” And he twines their fingers together. “Whatever Adam decides…”

“I know,” Crowley says, and for all that they seem to shrug it off, turning to call for Adam, their hand remains in Aziraphale’s, returning a warm and steady pressure.

* * *

Two years went by too fast for them. It took them 6,000 years to be comfortable becoming friends, but they slid down the rest of the slope together in the space of just eleven years. You’ve seen that for yourself.

They weren't meant to have choices, your mum/dad/parent and the angel. Or they didn't think they were meant to, which is something else quite different. It was all a choice, all along, and now their choices have led to you.

Adam.

It's time to make it happen, Adam – make it real. The world where they can make choices, or some other world. A world of your making, perhaps? A more perfect world than mine, with all the pains gently taken away, all the choices blunted? You could give Crowley back Matthew and Rebekah and all your siblings across time, so that his choice to defy his nature and love is easy – so his choice to face the pain is invalidated. You can take the pain of choosing to make a choice away from Aziraphale, and let him follow only a smooth straight path, forever. A path that leads away from Crowley.

In this moment, only you can choose, Adam. Is this world of choices worth it?

Whichever it is, they’ll stand with you. You know that, don’t you? They won’t just stand by. They’ve become part of the world, a world they love, but they also trust you. Whatever you decide, they’re with you. They’ll help you make it real, however much it hurts.

It’s time, Adam.

_We are the roses in the garden, beauty with thorns among our leaves._  
_To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed._  
_What is the reason for having roses when your blood is shed carelessly?_  
_It must be for something more than vanity._  


\-- from 'Eden', by 10,000 Maniacs.

[1] Ready or not, here we go. Don’t worry about the trip: it won’t take a moment.

[2] Quite a lot, in fact. Welcome to Nazareth.

[3] They have been meeting like this for quite a while now, by this time, and on this occasion, Aziraphale happens to know the name of Crowley’s current adoptee. This isn’t always true.

[4] You know damn well what’s in that basket. So does Aziraphale.

[5] “Adam,” he’d said, thoughtfully. “A bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

“But undeniably appropriate,” Crowley said in reply.


End file.
